Kirk Spitzer

Kirk Spitzer is a veteran journalist and defense correspondent, based in
Tokyo.
He has covered nearly every major US military deployment since Operation
Desert Shield and Desert Storm and has made more than a dozen reporting trips
to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was the first journalist to report from the
fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004, where he was embedded with US
special operations forces.
Spitzer has won numerous journalism awards, and is a frequent speaker at
military-media symposiums. Before moving to Tokyo, he worked as defense correspondent for USA Today in Washington DC, and reporter/producer for CBS News in London.
Spitzer has a B.A. in journalism from the University of Hawaii; he was also a
Jefferson Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu and a Davenport Fellow at
the University of Missouri.

Articles from Contributor

TOKYO – Warships from Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Force have been making stops at the American naval base at Pearl Harbor for more than two decades. But it’s going to seem strange, indeed, when Japanese ground troops …

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan– After months of seemingly mixed signals regarding security relations with China, Australia sent a clear message where its interests lie with the arrival Monday of a frontline warship at the hub of …

TOKYO – An unprecedented force of ships, troops and aircraft that Japan will send to southern California for amphibious warfare exercises next month represents only the first step in what leaders hope will be a transformation …

NAGAOKA, Japan – Seven decades after the death of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in an aerial ambush in the South Pacific, Japan is still struggling with how to remember the charismatic naval commander who opposed war with the United …

TOKYO – With North Korea still issuing threats and invective, it’s worth turning attention to the U.S. air base in Misawa, Japan. That’s where a memorial service was held Tuesday marking the 44th anniversary of the downing …

TOKYO – With both Japan and the United States squarely in the cross hairs of the latest North Korea missile crisis, a new report concludes that the U.S.-Japan defense alliance is in pretty good shape – thank goodness for that …

TOKYO – The U.S. pivot toward Asia – and the potential for confrontation with China – became a little more real this week with the arrival of a new class of warship designed to fight in coastal waters.

TOKYO – Marines from I Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, slog through wind and snow during a joint training exercise with Japanese troops at the Hokkaido-Dai Maneuver Area in northern Japan last week. The exercise took …

TOKYO – What with historical and territorial disputes with its neighbors and a rightward tilt in government, this might not seem the best time for a big-budget Hollywood production to come along and examine whether Japan’s …

TOKYO – Huge cuts in American defense spending will go into effect on Friday, but don’t expect major changes in the readiness or “re-balancing” of U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region. That’s thanks in large part to …